Issue 8, 2017

Tumor marker detection using surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy on 3D Au butterfly wings

Abstract

Tumor markers are usually over-expressed in human body fluids during the development of cancers. Monitoring tumor markers' level is thus important for early diagnosis and screening of cancers. One way to achieve this is based on the surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technique that can drastically amplify Raman signals of analytes on a plasmonic metal (e.g., Au, Ag, and Cu) surface. However, this promising method suffers from aggregation of plasmonic nanoparticles. Here we report a stable, reproducible, and facile SERS-based readout method to detect an important tumor marker, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). This route utilizes Au butterfly wings with natural three dimensional (3D) hierarchical sub-micrometer structures rather than relying on the aggregates of metal nanoparticles. The Au butterfly wings show excellent SERS property and are temperature (80 °C) and time (6 months) stable on a sub-micrometer scale. Thus, the detecting antibodies and enzyme-linked secondary antibodies that are usually applied in conventional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) can be replaced by chemically synthesized CEA aptamers, significantly simplifying the whole detection process. We demonstrate the feasibility of this method via quantitative detection of clinical CEA level in human body fluids. This work thus demonstrates a promising tumor marker detection technique based on a hierarchical sub-micrometer SERS structure, which could be useful for the mass screening of early stage cancers.

Graphical abstract: Tumor marker detection using surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy on 3D Au butterfly wings

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
21 Nov 2016
Accepted
19 Jan 2017
First published
19 Jan 2017

J. Mater. Chem. B, 2017,5, 1594-1600

Tumor marker detection using surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy on 3D Au butterfly wings

G. Song, H. Zhou, J. Gu, Q. Liu, W. Zhang, H. Su, Y. Su, Q. Yao and D. Zhang, J. Mater. Chem. B, 2017, 5, 1594 DOI: 10.1039/C6TB03026B

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements